Do your supplement cabinets look like this? If they do, you may want to watch
this video.
I routinely will get requests from patients that say," doc I'm taking all
these supplements. Will you take a look? Will you tell me what you think?" and this
is this is my most recent one. Over the past couple of days and the list goes on
and on. This is a two-page list. usually the lists are two to
three pages this is another one this is one that I saw earlier this week and you
know they get into, for example, the B vitamins C vitamins different sources
for different supplements - within the same supplement category. this is page two of this
second patient - again multiple sources multiple ingredients. How can all this
stuff - how can you tell whether all this stuff works or not?
now it's gonna sound again like I'm complaining. This is my bathroom closet
it is a spillover from my bathroom cabinet which is in a little bit better
shape and that cabinet in turn is a spillover from my bathroom sink. So you
know what I'm just as bad as the rest of us regarding looking at supplements and
trying them out. So if you do that - and I'll talk with you a little bit more
about my response - there's actually a lot of information that you can find about
supplements and there's also some logic to thinking about supplements as well - in
terms of information and resources. This is a great resource here obviously
besides dr. Google or dr. YouTube you know the problems with dr. Google and
dr. YouTube is that you tend to get opinions much more than
evidence and on this channel there that's one of the major focus points of
my channel is to provide evidence as opposed to opinions. This is the National
Institutes of Health website for the office of dietary supplements. As you
know there are hundreds of supplements and this is a - this contains a full list
of fact sheets for those supplements here's an example out of the list here's
just the As - you know they've got - tons and tons of lists of fact sheets
they also provide a science background on supplements as well
I will provide the links for the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements under
the video. Here's a - speaking of which as we go down the list here's the T's and
the Bs the Ws and the Ys. Now the first patient I mentioned had - he did a
logical thing. He said, " look I am going crazy trying to keep up with all these
supplements. I'm seeing a naturopath." That's what he was telling me and he
said, "I asked the guy, 'you know what. Let's just get to one thing that gives me
everything.' or at least as much as possible." So this is what the naturopath
gave him. This is that IntraMa. as you start looking well you got vitamin A
from multiple sources C,D,E - multiple sources what does this start to remind
you of - a multivitamin. This is a - now they're developing a new multivitamin
and again - that's part of the problem. With the entire supplement market, it is
very, very difficult to pin dow. We'll talk about why in these next
two or three slides and these final images. This is
part of my response. I'm gonna start using this on a regular basis with
patients when they ask for these reviews let me .. - give me a minute I
need to read some of this because there's important information in here
for this topic. Let me first mention a couple of caveats regarding supplement
reviews. First the supplement - the universe of supplements - is a large one
and it's growing every day and shifting and moving. No supper supplement is
perfect, but many do show evidence of some positive impact. Now let's take
niacin as example it's been shown to do very many positive things including the
only thing that will help increase HDL good cholesterol ,which is very important.
However it's got a problem. Every solution - it seems creates another
problem ,or brings with it other problems. It causes flushing. So now - there are
solutions to the niacin flushing problem. There are multiple preparations which
improve that. Well again back to the issue of every solution creating a whole
new set of problems. So then they did a lot of research using forms of niacin
which didn't flush. One of those forms was adding laproprian. Lapropriont
is a chemical that basically decreases the function of the the prostaglandin
which helps niacin increase HDL. so guess what? now there's a bunch of studies
which show that " niacin doesn't work ". Well the reality is most of those
studies include lapropriant - so again there's this huge debate about whether
niacin actually works or not. You've got the European Society of Cardiology
recommending niacin the ACC doesn't and again just tune in to youtube or Google
and you'll see all the evidence you want of that debate. Now very few supplements
are truly dangerous the FDA is conservative regarding safety
requirements aspirin may actually be the biggest exception it might be the most
dangerous OTC out there. You've heard that many
of us have heard that and why is that? it was approved long ago. and it's - the FDA a
tends to have a difficult time going back and changing its decisions and
recommendations .so you end up with the question - are supplements the Fountain of
Youth -or are they just more expensive urine? I don't think they're either. Again
it's more complicated than that. I wish I could say they're all more expensive
urine - and I used to say that. As I get deeper in terms of researching there's
clear evidence that they do help - berberine curcumin NAC pqq - tons of them
have evidence that they help. now do they help as much as lifestyle ?do they
help as much as a 20 pound weight loss? No way !if you need to lose 20 or 30
pounds - YOU CAN'T SUPPLEMENT YOUR WAY OUT OF A BAD LIFESTYLE.
you can't supplement your way out of refusing to exercise - you can't
supplement your way out of eating a lot of carbs if you have insulin resistance
or diabetes. Here's another thing to remember - if a supplement really did
help a lot ,usually Big Pharma is going to find a way to manipulate it just a
little bit, make it prescription level and charge a ton of money for it - and
make a ton of money with it. I don't say this to beat up on Big Pharma Pharma.
In fact I'm not the big pharma hater that most - actually most of my
viewers are. if you don't believe that let me give an example the statins. the
statins were some of the most profitable drugs ever. in fact they were the most
profitable drugs ever until fairly recently I think they may have been
unseated. statins came from supplements. a supplement that's still very commonly
known - red yeast rice. so what are you gonna do? are you gonna stop taking supplements?
yeah I don't really think you that we will. there's too much of a
swan song. so I think I'm going to end up continuing to do reviews - supplement
reviews. Speaking of which - this is page two where I go through the list
regarding each - DHEA, some of the thyroid supplements, vitamins D, K krill
krill oil etc etc and page three so thank you for your interest